WV Man Names Teleradiologists in $2 Million Wrongful Death Suit

A West Virginia man has named a national teleradiology company among 15 defendants in a $2 million lawsuit filed this week related to his wife’s death in 2010.
According to a report from the The West Virginia State Journal, Robert J. Eversole, II, alleges that his wife Paulette waited eight hours in the ER before doctors ordered an abdominal CT, which was sent to an Idaho NightHawk reader for review.
Neither that radiologist nor the morning-shift radiologist at the Winchester, VA Medical Center observed anything wrong with the scans, but Paulette Eversole’s condition worsened. She eventually died of mesenteric ischemia, her viscera full of necrotic tissue and two of the three main arteries in her heart blocked.
In the same story, Eversole’s attorney, Daniel James, bemoans the entrepreneurial business practices at work in the hospital, saying "surgeons, radiologists, everyone works for themselves or a corporation, not for the hospital."
James goes on to specifically indict the practice of teleradiology in his statements.
“It used to be that you could see a person face to face, shake his or her hand, not someone behind a curtain. These people are making decisions on our life. Now we don't know who the hell they are.”
Defendants in the suit include the Delaware-based NightHawk Radiology Holdings Inc. and Virtual Radiological Corp.